Phoenix firefighters reflect on 9/11 Ground Zero deployment 25 years later
Phoenix firefighters reflect on 9/11 deployment
Members of Arizona Task Force 1 share their experiences working night shifts at Ground Zero following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. FOX 10's Brian Webb reports.
PHOENIX - The Sept. 11 anniversary has special meaning to a handful of Phoenix firefighters who were deployed to New York City soon after the attack and spent the next three weeks sifting through rubble on a recovery mission.
What they're saying:
Not long after the twin towers fell, Arizona Task Force 1 had a pretty good idea they would be deployed to New York City. They are trained in navigating building collapses, but there is no training for what was to come.
"It actually seems like yesterday other than the way I feel physically," Capt. Mark Tirman of the Phoenix Fire Department said.
"Before I left my house, I saw the second plane hit," firefighter Jerry Johnson with the Phoenix Fire Department said. "I turned to my wife and told her, ‘We’re gonna get deployed.’"
Two Phoenix firefighters were sent to New York City in the days after Sept. 11. Both were young men in their 30s back then, tasked with the unimaginable job of a lifetime.
"Everything looked like a movie set," Tirman said. "There was smoke. It was still smoldering. It’d smolder for weeks afterwards."
Capt. Mark Tirman and firefighter Jerry Johnson of the Phoenix Fire Department recall the time they were deployed to New York City for recovery efforts.
The mission ranged from the enormous size of the debris field to the painstaking task of collecting identifiable items, from shoes to jewelry.
"Jewelry, shoes, clothing, wallets—those all went to different piles because that was somebody, that’s somebody’s loved one, that’s something that can help identify them," Johnson said.
Firefighter Johnson worked the graveyard shift, digging through rubble in the dark. But the hardest part was not the pile of twisted steel and concrete. It was walking into Firehouse 10 and seeing the lockers of the men who never made it back.
"The lockers were open, the keys were there, there were coffee cups still on the table," Johnson said. "Nobody wants to touch that stuff."
For Tirman, the worst part was recovering body parts alongside New York City firefighters.
"But this is their buddies and their family members, and it was—it was hard," Tirman said. "It was hard for me to see them suffer."
‘We as a country had unity’
Big picture view:
Both men also experienced the best of humanity born out of the worst: a city and country united.
"The biggest thing was how many people actually liked each other," one firefighter said. "Like they weren’t separated by what they did. There was like no violence there. It really felt like they were really being American."
"We as a country had unity," another firefighter said. "No matter who you were, what you wore, what you believe, what you didn’t believe, we came together as a country."
After 25 years, the local fire crew realizes they brought back valuable lessons from New York City—the physical and technical lessons for sure, but also the mental and emotional toll it took on them that is still with them to this day.
The Source: Information in this report was gathered from Capt. Mark Tirman, a firefighter with the Phoenix Fire Department; and Jerry Johnson, a firefighter with the Phoenix Fire Department.